A question of loyalty - gays and the Republican party

Will gay Republican's support for the party come at the expense of gay rights?

The January 19 breakfast, its program said, "celebrates the ed States of America" and was a tribute to the "more than one million gay and lesbian voters" who cast ballots for the Republican ticket. Alan Simpson, former U.S. senator from Wyoming, praised his old friend Vice President Dick Cheney for his close relationship with his lesbian daughter, Mary. Charles Francis, a friend of the new president's, spoke optimistically about making sexual orientation a "nonissue" in the Republican Party.

Applauding approvingly, the largely white and male crowd of between 300 and 400 dined on bacon and eggs in an elegant Washington, D.C., ballroom. But then David Catania, a District of Columbia city councilman, momentarily punctured the feel-good mood of the first public event of the Republican Unity Coalition, billed by its founder Francis as a "gay-straight alliance." The GOP's "treatment of gays and lesbians is at best unacceptable and at worst disgraceful," he declared, comparing its official platform, which opposes same-sex marriage and gays in the military, to racial segregation.

"What you're speaking about, David, is old crap," said Simpson, following Catania at the microphone. "There's no need to wash out the old laundry." Yet the antigay Republican platform to which Catania referred was adopted just last July.

The angry exchange between Catania and Simpson illustrates the deep division inside the GOP about how to address its antigay stances during a time in which the party holds unprecedented power. The election--and the Supreme Court order in its aftermath--gave the party control of not just the White House but also the House of Representatives as well as a 50-50 split in the Senate and 29 governorships.

"When a group identifies primarily with one party, as the gay community has done with the Democrats, it's generally feast or famine," says Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Governmental studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. "It feasted during the Clinton years, and now it's famine during the Bush years because of the tremendous power the antigay religious right wields in the Republican Party. It's not going to be an easy four years."

Francis, a Washington, D.C., public affairs consultant, says the Republican Unity Coalition hopes to avoid skirmishes with the new administration, reflecting Bush's pledge to govern through unity, not division. "We are not about drawing lines but about enlarging circles," he says. "The bottom line is that the Republican Party needs to reach out to everybody. We're going to promote the big-tent philosophy."

How that philosophy will be applied to a party riven over gay rights is uncertain. The effort has gotten off to a rocky start over the nomination of antigay religious conservative John Ashcroft as attorney general. When he was confirmed February 1, Ashcroft won the cabinet post long coveted by the religious right. Many gays outside Republican ranks expressed fury and frustration over the role of Francis's organization and Log Cabin Republicans, a gay group, in the bitter nomination fight. Neither group opposed the appointment, and Log Cabin actually facilitated it by releasing a statement from Ashcroft, who had a 0 rating from the Human Rights Campaign during his U.S. Senate tenure, on his behalf.

During his Senate confirmation hearings in January, Ashcroft faced a barrage of questions about his role as a senator in blocking the confirmation of gay philanthropist James Hormel as U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg. Just days after Ashcroft testified that Hormel's sexual orientation played no part in his opposition to the nomination, Paul Offner, a Georgetown University professor, alleged that Ashcroft had asked whether he had the "same sexual preference as most men" during a 1985 job interview. (At the time Ashcroft had just been elected Missouri's governor.)

Despite others' concerns about Ashcroft's record and veracity, Log Cabin released a statement in which Ashcroft denied Offner's charge. "We are not in a position to say yea or nay on cabinet appointees," says Rich Tafel, the group's executive director. "Bush did make a lot of moderate appointments, and for that he deserves credit."

Sabato said Log Cabin's role in supporting the nomination was Washington politics as usual. "Log Cabin is not going to be an independent lobbying group or watchdog but an interest group within the party," he says. "This is how some groups traditionally try to curry favor and gain political appointment--by being team players. It remains to be seen whether they will get anything from it, but it would be a mistake to look to them to confront the president."

But David Mixner, a Democratic political organizer, is uneasy with the symbiotic way in which Log Cabin and the new coalition defined their relationships to the new administration. "Frankly, I don't know how anyone can live with John Ashcroft as chief law enforcement officer of the nation," says Mixner.

The Republican Unity Coalition grew out of a meeting of 12 gay Republicans with then-Texas governor Bush in April at his presidential campaign headquarters. During the meeting and in a press conference afterward, Bush promised that sexual orientation would not be a factor in hiring were he elected president, having waffled repeatedly on the issue in the campaign.

Francis secured the meeting at least in part through his friendships with Bush and Karl Rove, Bush's chief political strategist. In addition, Log Cabin unwittingly helped Francis. The group endorsed Bush's chief opponent in the Republican primaries, Sen. John McCain, and ran anti-Bush ads in key primary states. In retaliation, Bush refused even to meet with the group's leaders, opening the door for the ad hoc group of gay Republicans Francis leads. Shortly thereafter, Log Cabin overcame its concerns about Bush's antigay record in Texas--which included support for sodomy laws and opposition to adoptions and foster parenting by same-sex couples--and endorsed his candidacy.

Almost overnight Francis became a key figure in national gay politics. In some ways Francis's situation parallels that of Mixner, a friend of Bill Clinton's who campaigned enthusiastically for Clinton among gay voters. When Clinton was elected president, Mixner eagerly waited for him to fulfill his campaign promise to lift the ban on gay and lesbian military personnel. But before Clinton backed down from the promise, Mixner warned him not to be known as the man who "negotiated our freedom away." Soon after Clinton announced the compromise the resulted in "don't ask, don't tell," Mixner was arrested for participating in a protest outside the White House.

"When I got arrested, people thought I was the biggest fool in the world to give up access for a period of time," Mixner says. "It turned out that I was right about `don't ask, don't tell.' The president and I made up, and we've had a great relationship since. My experience in 40 years of politics is that, Democrat or Republican, unless you are willing to be strong, you will be taken for someone who can be polished. Charles Francis needs to ask himself whether he's being used."

No one expects to see Francis in handcuffs anytime soon, especially since his brother, Jim Francis, was an adviser in the Bush campaign. With his gray pin-striped suit and drawl, the gentlemanly Francis fits the stereotype of the Texas Republicans who now dominate Washington's political establishment. But by his own admission, Francis is wary of the spotlight, preferring to work behind the scenes. He declines nearly every interview request. His reluctance makes it nearly impossible to discern his motives, goals, or strategy.

Reached by The Advocate, Francis repeatedly tried to cut the interview short. Among his brief remarks were that he sees the new group as "complementing" Log Cabin. He says his group will raise money for gay-friendly conservatives and sponsor "educational forums."

Asked about his group's stated goal--making sexual orientation "a nonissue in the Republican Party"--Francis responds that he hopes to convince conservative leaders that "discrimination against gay people just because of sexual orientation is wrong." However, he declines to take a position on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the federal bill to ban antigay bias in the workplace--a bill Bush opposes.

Indeed, Francis appears more eager to promote Republican economic principles within the gay community than gay rights in the GOP, "We're very interested in working on fiscal issues within the party that are not necessarily gay-specific issues," he says. "But there is some overlap. The estate tax, for instance, has a huge impact on gay couples in longterm relationships. If one partner leaves the other his estate, it is taxed at the full death tax rate. In a legal marriage it would not be taxed. We'd like to see that made more fair, and we can find common ground on that issue in the party."

Tafel insists he is pleased with the coalition's launch. "I support Charles's strategy," he says. "Straight people are far more influential in our role within the Republican Party than gay activists will ever be."

With Francis focused on fiscal policy and Tafel tacitly supporting Ashcroft's nomination, gay activists wonder to whom the larger gay community could turn if it comes under siege from antigay forces. Catania says that because the District of Columbia is heavily dependent on the federal government, he is not in a position to become the Republican David Mixner. "My remarks were a reality check," he says. "I wanted to make sure we didn't become prematurely euphoric. But the fact is that our chits are few with this administration. Our only alternative is to engage and educate."

One hope in future battles might lie with the powerful nongay allies that Francis is courting. In addition to Simpson, the breakfast host committee included Mary Matalin, former CNN commentator, now a senior adviser to Cheney; Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican; John McGraw, California Republican Party chairman; and Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, a powerful conservative lobby that seeks to halve the size of the federal government.

McGraw's presence was particularly notable because he is a religious conservative who backed the Knight initiative, the anti-gay-marriage ballot measure California voters passed last year. Brian Bennett, an openly gay member of Bush's transition team, says he developed a friendship with McGraw through their involvement in California politics. "For a social conservative, he deserves a lot of credit," Bennett says. "Basically what he's saying is, `I don't agree with your agenda, but you deserve a place at our table.'" Bennett also points to a more pragmatic motive: "The California party is reaching out because it hit rock bottom. It can't simply write off the gay vote any more."

Norquist agrees that Republicans need gay voters. He told The Advocate that gay conservatives fit into the "leave-us-alone coalition" he advocates, which includes everyone from gun owners to home schoolers. "If you are someone who believes in a broad gay rights agenda as it is traditionally articulated--using big government to address perceived wrongs--you probably won't feel comfortable in our center-right coalition. But if you believe in a more libertarian philosophy, there is no reason why gay people shouldn't be with us. To create a coalition, people don't have to agree about everything."

Even though many Republican elected officials still support antigay measures, Norquist foresees the day in which gay conservatives and antigay religious conservatives coexist peacefully in the party. "Traditional-values conservatives are in the center-right coalition because they fear the government will interfere with the way they want to bring up their children and control their own family life. That could lead to a lot more sympathy toward keeping the government from intervening with the way in which gays and gay couples want to lead their lives."

But Norquist admits that some things, such as gays in the military and same-sex marriages, aren't a topic for discussion between the two sides, at least not yet. "Those are issues the leave-us-alone coalition hasn't talked about much at all," Norquist says. "That's something Charles Francis and the Republican Unity Coalition are going to have to raise in the future."

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